Yesterday's article from the Wall Street Journal about Google's self-driving car is a helpful focal point for the future of all technologies. The heart of the question is both specifically literal and generally metaphorical: Does it ultimately serve us better to let go of the wheel, take our foots off the brakes and let computers do the work?
Last May, when
Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History."
Below in the comments section (good job, Google, for having one) is a mix of jubilant expectation and wide-ranging concern. It offers important insights into how fundamentally this could change lives for the better, while also sparking our most common fears. One good example:
I am disabled from the waist down and can't use my feet to drive. I think this technology of self driving cars is super cool! I just need guarantees that this is super safe because I can't press the brakes."
The WSJ article is about how those fears get codified. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has established a rule that cars being tested on that state's public road must allow driver's "immediate physical control" if needed. Google will comply with a steering wheel and brakes.
This ability to go manual quickly is meaningless for those who could be most liberated by self-driving cars. Blindness or paralysis would render the debate moot, for instance. But when it comes to this technology being merely convenient, likely the case for a large percentage of consumers, questions of safety vs. perception of safety is going to drive our discourse. Not just with cars, but with smart technologies in the home and eventually personal decisions we make in nutrition, exercise, etc. As the WSJ article notes, questions of liability, expense, ownership are just ahead.
But what about desire? Even if we could be completely convinced that self-driving cars would reduce the chance for accidents (and good luck with that), would that keep us from wanting the wheel and brakes?
As one commenter explained on Google's blog, "I think they're making a real marketing mistake jumping straight to no-wheel, no-controls. At least initially, people are going to WANT to feel like they COULD take control of the vehicle even if they don't." She goes on to explain that she understands this may not be the best safety solution, to add a wheel and brakes, but is the best business solution.
The California DMV decision reflects that opinion by reflecting a basic cognitive understanding about uncertainty. It is much easier to live with uncertainty of our safety if one of two things exist: either implicit trust that another human being has the control (trains, airplanes, etc.) or we have a chance to save ourselves (the wheel). We are comforted by the pilot's voice at 30,000-plus feet in the air more than the computer that is flying the plane at that point.
At a deeper level, another question arises. How much safety and convenience makes total loss of control worth it? Yes, there are times when we would prefer to not have to drive. But the ability to feel the car respond to us is at this point still a meaningful part of life on the road. Here in the U.S. it is an integral part of freedom mythologies.
"I really want my kids to grow up in a future where only robots do the driving," one commenter writes. I am pretty sure he's being ironic. But think about that statement as a metaphor for future life and it, ironic or not, becomes especially poignant.
